The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is pleased to partner with the IPS Group, the city’s new parking pay station vendor. IPS is an industry leader in smart parking technology. After a thorough evaluation process, including an on-street demonstration that gave Seattle parkers a chance to weigh in, IPS emerged as the clear choice. SDOT plans to replace all its parking pay stations in 2015-2016 with new technology.

New technology will provide a higher level of customer service and communications reliability. Credit card transaction times will decrease. New credit card readers allow the user to maintain control of their card, so they will no longer get stuck in pay stations. New back-office software will improve our ability to detect problems remotely and fix them faster. Changes to rates can be made wirelessly from the office instead of downloaded manually at each machine. The new pay stations will allow for “time of day” pricing, to allow for lower parking rates in the morning or other times of less demand.